It has been three chokka days of surf. Bodies are bruised, limbs have been tweaked, muscles tormented, yet the finalists are definitely STOKED! 16 hours of scoring cooking waves has been recorded, confirming what our suspicions have been all along - the finalists are gaga for waves. Their obsession makes them suckers for punishment. And so we have un-emphatically dished out a severe surf schedule for the boys. And to think, there is still 2 days of this to go!
Today we called on the grinding left we had the previous day, an incredible sand gurgling thug that hisses, stirs violently, and ‘gasses’ - Llandudno speak for ‘spits’, thanks Jasper. This secret-SECRET sandbar has a rep for luring you into the barrel where you can park for seemingly eons of tubetime, before it unceremoniously chews you up. Sometimes, just sometimes, it rewards you with departure.
Five hours of barrels passed and after everyone had their fill we pointed the cars east for a-look-see at another setup. Two hours later a freighting right was discovered, which significantly added to the trips overall wave tally. Like I said, bruised, tweaked and tormented!
At dusk we dragged the finalists aching bodies back to our Mossel Bay base of the Park House Lodge. We slipped them the secret ballot – as we have each evening - and ask them to pen down for us who they considered was the ‘standout’ of that day, other than themselves of course. This was meant to give us an idea of who the surfers themselves would choose as the winner at the end of the project. And after three days of surveying their secret suggestions you would assume that we would have an indication of who might win this. We don’t! Everyone has been ripping. And our finalists votes confirm this.
